Speak... and be heard?

This book portrays the 9th grade life of a girl called Melinda Sordino. Her former friends hate her because before school had started, she called the cops at a wild party after she had gotten raped. So all this was making her depressed.

When school starts, her only friend is a really talkative girl known as Heather- ( from-Ohio ) who talks really fast and wants to get in the Martha's, a clan who she ( Heather ) later thinks they are abusing her.

In school, she has a run-in in the hall with a teacher she calls Mr. Neck who
isn't exactly the nicest person. She later meets a boy called David Petrakis ( later in the book they become friends ) who was her hero because he fought against Mr. Neck in the classroom.

In her art class, she has a teacher called Mr. Freeman who is somewhat a hippie. He has the students pick in a drawing-like style what they will work on for the school year. She get "Tree". She thought it was easy but she still worked on it.

She ( later but not much later ) later finds a janitors room
or closet which isn't used anymore. Toward the end of the book she confronts the guy who raped her in her little janitor closet, Andy Evans. ( Before this she writes something about him that says something like " Guys to avoid: Andy Evans. Later she looks and people have added to her small list. ) But now she doesn't wimp out and wins.

I liked this book because it was fun to read ( not boring ) . You can just pull it out and read it. It is more for older kids though. Don't give it to your 7 year old. And also, the book has alot of detail.